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MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE CASPAR (1774-1849)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 351 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE CASPAR (1774-1849) , See also:Italian See also:cardinal and linguist, was See also:born on the 17th of See also:September 1774, at See also:Bologna, and educated there. He was ordained See also:priest in 1797, and in the same See also:year became See also:professor of Arabic in the university, but shortly afterwards was deprived for refusing to take the See also:oath of See also:allegiance to the Cisalpine See also:Republic. In 1803 he was appointed assistant librarian of the See also:institute of Bologna, and soon afterwards was reinstated as professor of See also:oriental See also:languages and of See also:Greek. The See also:chair was suppressed by the See also:viceroy in 18o8, but again rehabilitated on the restoration of See also:Pius VII. in 1814, and continued to be held by Mezzofanti until his removal from Bologna to See also:Rome in 1831, as a member of the See also:congregation de propaganda fide. In 1833 he succeeded Angelo See also:Mai as See also:chief keeper of the Vatican library, and in 1838 was made cardinal and director of studies in the Congregation. He died at Rome on the 15th of See also:March 1849. His See also:peculiar See also:talent, comparable in many respects to that of the so-called " calculating boys," was not combined with any exceptional measure of intellectual See also:power, and produced nothing of permanent value. It seems certain, however, that he spoke with considerable fluency, and in some cases even with See also:attention to See also:dialectic peculiarities, some fifty or sixty languages of the most widely separated families, besides having a less perfect acquaintance with many others. See See also:Russell, See also:Life of the Cardinal Mezzofanti (See also:London, 1857); A. Bellesheim, Giuseppe Cardinal Mezzof See also:anti (See also:Wurzburg, 1880).

End of Article: MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE CASPAR (1774-1849)

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